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Venture Finance SIG: Fundraising Process

Description

Navigating through venture fundraising is tricky, but these days it’s become even worse. Join us for a panel as we discuss some of the details. Items that we will cover during the discussion include:

- Setting and Managing Expectations

- Understand the Overall Timing

- Going through Due Diligence and Research

- Negotiating and Discussing Terms

- Avoiding Potential Snags

Moderator- Rohit Gupta

Speakers-

Prasanna Krishnan, DFJ

Martin Kan, SVB

Peter Astiz, DLA

Bios:

Prasanna is an Associate and Kauffman Fellow at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Prior to joining DFJ, Prasanna worked as a Program Manager at Microsoft on WinFS - a new storage system for next generation Windows PCs. She defined the product design for storage and search capabilities, managed cross-functional teams, and worked with leading media software and document management companies to persuade them to adopt WinFS. Prasanna was selected into the Microsoft Select Fast-track Program as one of 15 employees who demonstrated potential to be future leaders at the company. She also worked at McKinsey & Company in their Philadelphia office, at Internet Capital Group and at Novell Software Development Ltd in India.

Prasanna holds an MBA from the Wharton School where she graduated as a Palmer Scholar. She has an MS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was a Siebel Scholar, and received the C.W.Gear Outstanding Graduate Student award for research and service. Prasanna holds a B.E. in Computer Science from BITS, Pilani, India where she received the University Fellowship awarded to the top 10 undergraduates each semester. She was also awarded the BITS Alumni Association's "30 under 30" award.

Martin Kan is a director in the Entrepreneur Services Group at SVB Capital. He is focused on working with both pre-Series A and other software companies in their need for venture capital by leveraging the bank's various resources and strong network in the venture capital community.

Previously, Kan was a relationship manager in the Emerging Technologies Group at Silicon Valley Bank where his responsibilities were to provide banking services to early stage companies. He also managed a portfolio of venture-backed companies and has extensively underwritten credit facilities to these companies.

Prior to Silicon Valley Bank, Kan held several project management and engineering positions at TRW (now Northrop Grumman). While at TRW, he worked on such strategic missile projects such as MX/Peacekeeper and Minuteman III weapon systems and on various Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) programs.

Kan holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from California State Polytechnic University, PomonaNew York University's Stern School of Business. and a master’s in business administration from

Peter M. Astiz focuses on general counsel services for high technology companies; private and public financing transactions; and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Astiz represents both issuers and underwriters in initial public offerings and follow-on offerings as well as convertible debt offerings under Rule 144A. He also represents buyers and sellers in merger and acquisition transactions, including transactions with such companies as Cisco, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Motorola, Seagate, Juniper Networks and Verisign. Mr. Astiz also represents issuers and venture capitalists in venture capital and other private placement financings.

The San Francisco Business Times has named him among the best lawyers in the San Francisco Bay area.

Mr. Astiz was previously Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of Emusic.com (Nasdaq:EMUS).

---------------------------------NEW Opportunity! Sign-up now to meet with an Early-Stage Venture Lawyer - Prior to the event from 4:30 till 6:00PM, our host sponsor DLA Piper have offered to have an early-stage venture lawyer available to answer any general legal questions you may have regarding your proposed business. To sign up to speak with a DLA partner, please email Ella.vanGool@dlapiper.com with your contact details and your preferred time between between 4:30 and 6PM.----------------------------------

Location

DLA Piper LLP
2000 University Ave.(University Circle)
East Palo Alto, CA 94303
Tel: 650.833.2000
Note: These are the tall buildings on the corner of University Avenue and Woodland Avenue on the west side of Hwy. 101. They are in the University Circle complex.